


Menagerie

by Eggling



Series: daemon au [5]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen, daemon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 13:12:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18895312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: Jamie and Victoria visit the zoo and discuss daemon forms.





	Menagerie

Frowning, Jamie glanced between Teárlag and the great orange cat pacing back and forth before them. There were some similarities, he supposed – there was no denying that they shared a basic shape, and there was something familiar about the other cat’s movements. But the great beast remained alien, so far removed from the familiarity of Teárlag’s wildcat form.

“They’re from India.” Victoria was chattering excitedly beside him, but Jamie found himself only half-listening, spellbound by the enormous physicality of the cat itself. “In my day, people used to hunt them and bring home their skins.” She shuddered. “I think I’d much rather see it alive. Isn’t it beautiful?” Iolanthe slipped out of her arms, shifting eagerly from dog form to mimic the tiger.

“Aye.” Jamie spoke absent-mindedly, still caught up in the tiger. Pulling himself back to reality, he added “I’ve never seen one before. No’ even a dead one.”

“Never?” Victoria seemed surprised. “You’ve been saying that about almost every animal we’ve seen, Jamie.”

“Why should I have seen them?” Jamie protested. “It’s no’ like they lived close tae me. Some of them I hadnae even heard of before today.”

Victoria’s eyes narrowed, and she glanced down at Iolanthe, whose tail thrashed in response. “What if Teárlag had settled as a tiger?” she asked. “Or a pangolin, or – or one of those funny little frogs. You wouldn’t have known what she was.”

Laughing, Jamie gave her a friendly shove. “Hey, I know what a frog looks like.” He quickly fell quiet, mulling over Victoria’s question. “I dinnae remember ever meetin’ anyone who didn’t know what their daemon was,” he said at last. “Even if they hadn’t seen it themselves.”

“It’d be a wee bit odd,” Teárlag put in. “Bein’ something you’d never seen. How would ye know what it said about ye?”

“I met a man with a mammoth-daemon once,” Victoria said. “He was in the Royal Society – it was hardly as if he didn’t know what a mammoth one. But he’d never seen one.”

“Aye, but they’re no’ so different from elephants,” Jamie countered. “Ye can still guess what it means.”

“What’s it like, bein’ a tiger?” Teárlag was asking Iolanthe. “Is it like bein’ a cat, only bigger?”

“It’s like being a cat,” Iolanthe echoed. “Only you seem like a little kitten,” he added with a playful growl, stooping down to snap at the scruff of Teárlag’s neck. She scrambled out of his way, clambering awkwardly into Jamie’s arms and swiping at Iolanthe’s nose.

“You’re the kitten, no’ me,” she said loftily, sticking her own nose into the air. When Jamie and Victoria began to laugh, her expression only grew haughtier. “I’m older.”

“And I’m bigger,” Iolanthe pointed out.

Teárlag huffed. “Not forever. You’ll probably settle as something small, and then I’ll have to be picking ye up.” As Jamie and Victoria began to walk away from the tiger’s enclosure, she stilled, the flicking of her tail drawing to a halt. “Do ye ever wonder what you’ll settle as?”

“Sometimes.” Iolanthe shrugged his great shoulders, then shed his tiger form, fluttering onto Victoria’s wrist in the shape of a bird instead. “Did you?”

“We thought we knew,” Jamie put in. “Teárlag was always a songbird, when we were younger. _Talking to other people’s daemons again_ , he told himself sternly. _You’re getting to be just like the Doctor_. “What do ye think?” he asked, turning to Victoria instead of Iolanthe. “What’s he going tae settle as?”

She shrugged, looking a little lost. “We haven’t found anything that fits yet.”

“I liked the feeling of a tiger,” Iolanthe added. “But it wasn’t quite right.”

“Maybe you’re a lion, then,” Jamie suggested.

Victoria shook her head. “I’m not brave enough to be a lion,” she protested.

“Aye, ‘course ye are. It’d suit ye.” Jamie wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “You’re braver than ye think ye are, ye know.”

Victoria simply gave him a wry smile. “I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.”


End file.
